I’ve been spending so much energy on Halloween recently that I’ve neglecting covering any 80s nostalgia fun. Well Ho-ly crap! I just saw this Limited Edition DVD box set of the Greatest American Hero the other day and I was pretty flabbergasted. Anchor Bay has really gone above and beyond with this set including the entire series, a replica of the fabled lost instruction book (that even lights up) and a cool ass (well, in my lame geeky eyes) full sized cape. Man, if I had that cape I might even wear it to work. Well probably not, but I’d sure as hell think really hard about it.
Even though the set is a bit pricy at $100, it’s not that bad considering that’s almost the price of the three season sets separately. See, this is DVD marketing to a fan base that I can get behind, unlike the Brisco County Jr. DVDs that are almost the same price for just the 27 episodes minus anything as cool as that light up book or cape. I mean they could have at least thrown in a strap-on Bruce Campbell molded replica chin or something. At least when Anchor Bay did special editions of the Evil Dead flicks they put out those two versions of the creepy fun Book of the Dead.
I was actually thinking about TGAH the other day as I was reading some news on the upcoming Iron Man movie. I think this is what’s missing from the rash of super hero flicks that have been inundating the theatres for the last five years. All that’s being made are semi-serious super hero origin movies, and that formula is getting pretty stale. If Hollywood is going to adapt an existing property they need to vary their choices a bit and throw in some more comedy. Sure there was Sky High, which wasn’t that bad of a flick (it did have 2 Kids in the Hall alumni, Bruce Campbell, and Linda-Freaking-Carter after all), and there’s that Super Ex-Girlfriend flick that everyone seemed to hate, but I think there is already an audience built in for a good Greatest American Hero movie. I really need to watch some GAH episodes again; it’s been almost 20 years since I’ve seen them. Oh man, now the theme song is gonna get stuck in my head…
Anyway here are a couple more shots of the Collector’s Edition set that just came out to drool over:
